From lame to Lion—the 12-year evolution of OS X

Everyone into the time machine for a tour of Apple's "big cat" releases.

It may not feel that way, but we Mac users have now had quite a long run with OS X. We're coming up on 12 years since the first public release of the operating system (and even longer if you consider the betas and developer previews), and we've seen OS X go through plenty of changes during that time. Indeed, even Mac veterans may—with the passing of the years—have forgotten just how shaky some of those early OS versions could be.

Don't remember what OS X used to look like back when dinosaurs used to roam the planet and Apple's OS ran only on PowerPC processors? We've mined more than a decade of our own OS X reviews—studiously authored by John Siracusa—for screenshots and other OS X-related memories that trace the development of Apple's desktop OS through the 2000s. If you're interested in seeing how various UI elements have evolved over the years, strap yourself in for this safari showcasing OS X's big cats...

Mac OS X 10.0: Cheetah

OS X was officially released to the public in 2001 after a rollercoaster series of developer previews, some of which barely resembled the final product. Because it was brand new to most users coming over from Mac OS 9, the new OS featured a number of "shocking" interface elements, such as the new file browser:

And because so many users were still making generous use of their OS 8 and 9 applications, OS X featured a "Classic" mode. Take a look at 10.0's Classic mode settings panel:

In his review of Mac OS X 10.0, Siracusa concluded with this fairly mixed verdict:

Mac OS X shows tremendous promise, which is a nice way of saying that the 10.0 release is not quite ready for prime time. This is most certainly an early adopter's OS release. Interface responsiveness and effective stability are the two biggest fundamental problems, but missing features and compatibility issues rank just as high if you actually intend to use OS X as a full Mac OS 9 replacement: the 10.0 release cannot view DVD movies; printer drivers are still scarce; CD burning is not yet supported, even by Apple's own iTunes CD authoring application; and a lot of hardware (like my G3/400's serial port adapter to which my printer is attached) seem destined to be orphaned forever.

Perhaps the most important feature of the 10.0 release is the Software Update preference panel. A 10.0.1 update that includes a new kernel and classic environment, SSH support, a slew of updated drivers, and many other small fixes has been circulating on the net, and may be released by the time you read this. A regular series of free, network-distributed OS updates will go a long way towards making OS X fulfill even the limited promise of a first release of a brand new operating system. Let's hope Apple doesn't foolishly try to charge for the more significant upgrade due in time for July's MacWorld Expo in New York.

Unlike previous articles, this one was written almost entirely in OS X. I forced myself to do this, to some degree, and I certainly spent most of my time in classic applications like BBEdit and Photoshop even when running OS X. But the experience was at least tolerable, which is more than can be said for my experience with earlier releases.

Should you upgrade to Mac OS X? If you don't already have a copy (or plans to buy one), the answer is no. Most users should wait for a future release, and possibly new hardware to run it on. Should Apple have released OS X in its current state? I think so. Nothing stimulates application development like a shipping OS. Let's hope that the official release of Mac OS X also stimulates Apple itself to make improvements.

Mac OS X 10.1: Puma

The next major version of Mac OS X, 10.1, was released the same year (2001) as 10.0. Apple was quick to make some tweaks in the first six months. So what did it look like?

Here's Puma's Dock:

And the System Prefs:

The Login window also sported this Aqua-fied look:

Siracusa's take was only a bit more positive this time around, and believing in the new OS still required nothing short of faith:

I wrote at the start of this article that I want to believe in Mac OS X. I want to believe that it will replace Mac OS 9 in a way that improves upon every aspect of the classic Mac OS user experience. Unfortunately, although this may still come to pass, Mac OS X 10.1 is not that version of Mac OS.

But 10.1 improves on 10.0.x in many important ways. Overall system performance shows the biggest improvement, but it is not as drastic as some reports may lead you to believe. Other areas have stagnated. The user interface has not made significant strides since 10.0.x. Many annoying bugs remain, and many features have yet to be implemented.

Should you purchase Mac OS X 10.1? If you already use and enjoy Mac OS X 10.0, you should run out and pick up a free 10.1 upgrade CD at your local retailer as soon as possible. If you tried 10.0.x and found it somewhat lacking, I recommend at least giving 10.1 a try to see if the improvements are enough to push you over the edge. If you are waiting for the point of no return, where Mac OS X is a complete no-brainer upgrade from Mac OS 9, you'll have to wait a little longer. If you plan to run Mac OS X full-time, you should consider upgrading your RAM to what were previously through of as obscene levels (512MB or more). It will be the best thing you can do for Mac OS X, short of buying a faster Mac.

If you're not a Mac user at all, but are intrigued by the possibilities of Unix based operating system with friendly user interface (Linux fans, no flames, please), 10.1 is as good a version as any to dip your toe into. Windows users should not expect a feature set remotely comparable to Windows XP, but Mac OS X is different enough that it should still broaden some horizons. And Linux users might want to see how another operating system has chosen to build a GUI on top of a Unix core.

To amend my earlier sentiment, it might be more accurate to say that I want to believe not just in Mac OS X, but in Apple itself. I want to believe that they can produce the next insanely great platform: a powerful, stable OS with an interface every Mac user can love, running on stylish, high performance hardware. Both the software and the hardware end of that dream currently need work. And so the waiting game begins again, as Mac users settle in with 10.1 and prepare for the inevitable 10.1.x updates. Will there be more 10.1 users than there were 10.0.x users? Probably. But it says something about this supposed "mainstream release" of OS X when Apple itself is still selling all its hardware configured to boot into Mac OS 9 by default.

I used to be a Mac laptop user back in them days. I can say with some authority that OS X wasn't very stable until 10.3. The 10.1 and 10.2 (I didn't use 10.0) would crash (endless beachball and unresponsive system) precisely on the 5th day of system uptime. It was predictable. Looking back it was kind of funny but I didn't think so at the time. I just rebooted every 4 days, or I knew I'd get mad at the little bugger when I really really needed to do something and it made me power it off ungracefully.

Upgraded the same hardware to 10.3 and those issues went away. The 10.4 and 10.5 offered some new stuff but weren't as important upgrades as 10.3 was, in my eyes. I stopped using OS X at 10.5. Ran Ubuntu on that Powerbook (yeah really) for a little while and then switched to Dell XPS and now Alienware.

Great trip down memory lane. Siracusa's reviews have always been fantastic, and wow, what an interesting 11 years it's been. While I'm sorry about some of the directions Apple ended up taking, overall the level of improvement is undeniable. I'll be curious if we see any other fundamental shifts of a similar type over the next decade, either from Apple or one of the OSS distros (Microsoft seems to be making their play already with Windows 8). I think data interaction in particular could use a real rethink, but it's a tough thing to make happen. It may be that physical UI (particularly wearable displays) will be the ultimate driver.

Quote:

In his review of Mac OS X 10.0, Siracusa concluded with this fairly mixed verdict:

Quote:

...but missing features and compatibility issues rank just as high if you actually intend to use OS X as a full Mac OS 9 replacement: the 10.0 release cannot view DVD movies; printer drivers are still scarce; CD burning is not yet supported, even by Apple's own iTunes CD authoring application; and a lot of hardware (like my G3/400's serial port adapter to which my printer is attached) seem destined to be orphaned forever.

It's worth noting that this summary isn't entirely fair or complete (though many other parts of that verdict were extremely prescient). I was a long time user who started playing with OS X at DP4 and got on board full time with 10.0 (on a B&W G3 400). While it lacked important features and speed vs Mac OS 9 (and I'll always miss the spatial Finder and lack of any competent replacement) it also included a lot of critical features that Classic could never do, which was the whole point of the switch. Even at launch, the preemptive multitasking was a big deal, and for those users who made the mental switch could do a ton to hide issues with speed and lag. It may be hard to remember, but with Classic it wasn't possible to do such things as launch multiple applications at once, or do something in one application while other stuff happened in the background. That feature alone, something incredibly core that other OSes had for ages and we take utterly for granted now could make a huge difference. It was possible for example to load up a browser or document to work on, then launch everything else and go back to it. Even though it took a lot longer for other stuff to launch vs Mac OS 9, the effective delay to the user could be a ton less, because the system wouldn't become unusable.

Additionally, having the world of Unix opened up at last in addition to having everything else available was awesome. In Classic, something as simple as a web server cost a lot of money. In OS X Apache shipped with the system, as did the whole dev toolchain. Back then it could often be quite the trick getting certain utilities to compile, but ultimately for some of us that alone made the brand new OS far, far more functional.

John Siracusa wrote:

A regular series of free, network-distributed OS updates will go a long way towards making OS X fulfil even the limited promise of a first release of a brand new operating system. Let's hope Apple doesn't foolishly try to charge for the more significant upgrade due in time for July's MacWorld Expo in New York.[...]Should Apple have released OS X in its current state? I think so. Nothing stimulates application development like a shipping OS. Let's hope that the official release of Mac OS X also stimulates Apple itself to make improvements.

This was all entirely correct, and in retrospect both highlights other important features that have long since become standard and a critical mantra that good devs need to have: "real artists ship."

Snow Leopard was really excellent.Minor correction - Dashboard wasn't integrated into Mission Control. It was however rendered much less useful by make it a Space by default.I don't understand Launchpad at all. How is it preferable to having the Application folder in your dock?

Having a Macbook Pro with Tiger, I can vouch for the rough edges. Using an older iMac with Panther at one workplace, I felt (by then we had Snow Leopard out) it was positively ancient and backwards. I couldn't imagine who would use such a Finder with such limited features. I took for granted that I could run my Macbook Pro on Leopard for weeks on end without rebooting, a non-common occurrence for all the Windows PCs I had bought previously. I bought a used Macbook Pro because it was ironically the cheapest option for a metal laptop at the time (I had thought about Thinkpads, but they were heavier and slightly more expensive). I suppose it was a blessing that I stumbled upon Mac OS in its golden age of releasing Leopard and beyond, because before I had never even owned an iPod, always opting for a Creative or Rio. Time Machine seemed like a godsend that too many people didn't even know existed--- to this day. It was slightly surreal to see Macbooks go from being the outcasts on campus to being the norm they are today. Interesting ride indeed.

I'm more curious when they will, if ever, move away from OS 10. I realize that it has a HUGE moniker and recognition as OSX and that being the Mac but I am curious if they will ever take the jump to a new major version.

I'm more curious when they will, if ever, move away from OS 10. I realize that it has a HUGE moniker and recognition as OSX and that being the Mac but I am curious if they will ever take the jump to a new major version.

I used to be a Mac laptop user back in them days. I can say with some authority that OS X wasn't very stable until 10.3.

It probably varied a bit, for me OS X was a significant improvement in that regard vs Classic which was always a bit of a mess if you weren't very careful (or even if you were, to a lesser extent). I was on a PowerMac and can still remember the shock of having actual weeks of uptime, or applications that could crash without taking out the entire system, or no longer needing Conflict Catcher as a critical utility because no more extensions! Granted, there were absolutely plenty of crashes, outright kernel panics, and screw-ups from people getting used to Unix. I still remember Apple shipping an update where someone forgot to escape a line in the cleanup script, which meant that if you had any partitions or drives mounted with spaces in their names when the update ran it'd nuke everything. Whoops.

Still though, while the UI was good the underpinnings of Classic were awful by that point. Didn't take a whole lot to beat it, at least depending on the type of work.

It is very interesting to read. Especially the older reviews. People seemed more patient then for waiting for a brand new OS to mature to be properly understood by everyone. I am also interested seeing how the review conclusions slowly changed tones as time went on from focusing on all the missing features and what not that like 10 people used to point out things are changing and this is all just a beginning og stuff and we should stick with it.

Its also interesting to contrast MS approach and Apple's approach during this time. Where Apple went with separate OS's tied by a single service MS is going for a single platform to tie all things together. I can't wait to see where things are years from now.

Mac OS X 10.5: LeopardApple stretched out its release cycle once again with the release of Leopard in 2007, more than two years after Mac OS X 10.6 was released. One of the things Apple changed was the appearance of Dock labels, now with a dark background:

OSX is the only OS I've used that has kept me happy over a long period of time. I've been a serial OS switcher most of my life always trying to find the better fit but once I got started on OSX about 8 years ago I've never felt the need to switch. If anything I've gone deeper into the OSX world just because of the Mac hardware I have around. I have an old Mac Pro working great as a file server. In years past maybe I would have used Linux for this but I don't see any need. At best I'll run a Linux VM on it if I really have to for something. More to the point though I think OSX Is the only OS I've used that has been able to evolve and stay fresh without burning too many bridges in the process. Lion was probably a low water mark for that however Apple was pretty good about addressing those issues in Mountain Lion. My workflow and the apps I use on OSX have only gotten better over the years it seems.

I don't understand Launchpad at all. How is it preferable to having the Application folder in your dock?

Launchpad is a bafflingly stupid feature, in my opinion. And as an Apple enthusiast for many years, I cringe whenever I revisit it.

I felt the same about coverflow in the finder (and to a much lesser extent in iTunes). But to each his own, I guess. Take a look at all the people freaking out about the lack of coverflow in the latest incarnation of iTunes! Proof that it takes all kinds...

I used to be a Mac laptop user back in them days. I can say with some authority that OS X wasn't very stable until 10.3. The 10.1 and 10.2 (I didn't use 10.0) would crash ...

I would agree that OS X wasn't really usable until 10.3. It was just the speed and stability issues, the entire workflow was clunky until they introduced Expose. Also, the Safari browser was a huge step forward in day-to-day usability.

Still OS X 10.0 was interesting enough to get me "back to the Mac" and I ran out and bought a used Powerbook so that I could play with it. I thought MacOS 8/9 had become an kludgy abomination compared to WinNT/2000, but with OS X you could at least see the enormous potential.

(This article also reminded me that early versions of OS X had a bug where if you moved/clicked the mouse really fast, you could somehow bypass the screensaver password and get right to the desktop. Welp, I tripped the same issue on 10.7 a month or two ago.)

I used to be a Mac laptop user back in them days. I can say with some authority that OS X wasn't very stable until 10.3. The 10.1 and 10.2 (I didn't use 10.0) would crash (endless beachball and unresponsive system) precisely on the 5th day of system uptime. It was predictable. Looking back it was kind of funny but I didn't think so at the time. I just rebooted every 4 days, or I knew I'd get mad at the little bugger when I really really needed to do something and it made me power it off ungracefully.

Did you ever use Mac OS 9.2.2?

Instead of crashing predictably every 5 days, it would crash predictably every few hours.

I wouldn't do more than three or four minutes work on Mac OS 9 without saving changes.

OS X 10.0.0 may have been buggy, but at least it had pre-emptive multitasking and protected memory, to allow force quits where Mac OS 9 required a hardware reset.

I used to be a Mac laptop user back in them days. I can say with some authority that OS X wasn't very stable until 10.3. The 10.1 and 10.2 (I didn't use 10.0) would crash ...

I would agree that OS X wasn't really usable until 10.3. It was just the speed and stability issues, the entire workflow was clunky until they introduced Expose. Also, the Safari browser was a huge step forward in day-to-day usability.

Still OS X 10.0 was interesting enough to get me "back to the Mac" and I ran out and bought a used Powerbook so that I could play with it. I thought MacOS 8/9 had become an kludgy abomination compared to WinNT/2000, but with OS X you could at least see the enormous potential.

(This article also reminded me that early versions of OS X had a bug where if you moved/clicked the mouse really fast, you could somehow bypass the screensaver password and get right to the desktop. Welp, I tripped the same issue on 10.7 a month or two ago.)

Oh gawd yes. OS 9 was worse than win98. Similar pains, very similar, but somewhat worse due to basically no memory management. No journaled file system, no file permissions, cooperative multitasking, manual memory management. Photoshop crashing? Give it more ram! Meanwhile MS already had W2K and there was Linux. Both did it soooo much better they were 10 years ahead. The lethargic CPUs prior to intel didn't help things either.

OS X and then a move to intel made Apple competitive. But in the end it didn't matter because iOS and ARM turned out to be a winning formula. Go figure.

Yes. That's a correct way of pronouncing 'giga' ... 'gigga' is actually historically wrong (it's from the same derivation as 'gigantic'). Usage changes language of course, and purity has never been important to English, otherwise we'd all be using 'sexagesimal' instead of 'hexadecimal'.

I used to be a Mac laptop user back in them days. I can say with some authority that OS X wasn't very stable until 10.3. The 10.1 and 10.2 (I didn't use 10.0) would crash (endless beachball and unresponsive system) precisely on the 5th day of system uptime. It was predictable. Looking back it was kind of funny but I didn't think so at the time. I just rebooted every 4 days, or I knew I'd get mad at the little bugger when I really really needed to do something and it made me power it off ungracefully.

Did you ever use Mac OS 9.2.2?

Instead of crashing predictably every 5 days, it would crash predictably every few hours.

I wouldn't do more than three or four minutes work on Mac OS 9 without saving changes.

OS X 10.0.0 may have been buggy, but at least it had pre-emptive multitasking and protected memory, to allow force quits where Mac OS 9 required a hardware reset.

Lol I just posted that. Yeah I know. It was terrible. Postscript fonts and a GUI integrated into the OS before MS did it made macs entrenched with the graphics designers. That's pretty much the only reason they survived through the 90s. They were pretty terrible then.

Before, it was a lacking experience. Without exposé, there was no good way to switch between application windows. The old Finder opened every frickin' folder in its own frickin' window. Without Safari, you had a choice of suboptimal browsers (Chimera, IE 5 for Mac, OmniWeb...).

With 10.3, I felt OSX narrowly overtook XP. 10.4 and 10.5 would increase the lead. Since 10.6 and Win7, they've been on par. Both have been good enough for an OS since then...

Not sure if I would call the first versions of OS X lame but maybe revolutionary. My first experience with OS X was Jaguar and I was amazed coming from XP. Then I got my first MacBook Pro with Tiger and still find that the best version of the OS. I now have Snow Leopard and really enjoy it along with the backwards PPC compatibility. I find the new Lion versions add on the gloss but get rid of some of the awesomeness of OS X. I find they are losing their way with the new versions and fear what OS X is becoming.

Don't do that. Not only are you inflaming the comments for no reason, you are also talking out of your ass. First of all, a Mac is a PC. The hardware is identical. Identical. HP, Dell, Apple laptops all the same hardware all built by Foxconn. Instead, compare the OSs please. Microsoft has had a stable OS since 1999. It's called Windows 2000. Also there is Linux. And a slew of others.

You completely misread my comment, as I'm using "PC" in the generic "personal computer" sense and not in the "Mac versus PC" sense.

Regardless, I stand by my statement that personal computer OSes took surprisingly long to completely mature. And we PC users (Mac or Wintel) put up with an enormous load of bullshit for about ten years longer than we ideally should have. Everyone here is no doubt aware of the software problems Apple had in the 1990s and Microsoft had in the mid-2000s.

Of course now that PCs finally "work", it's just in time for them to be replaced by tablets

Don't do that. Not only are you inflaming the comments for no reason, you are also talking out of your ass. First of all, a Mac is a PC. The hardware is identical. Identical. HP, Dell, Apple laptops all the same hardware all built by Foxconn. Instead, compare the OSs please. Microsoft has had a stable OS since 1999. It's called Windows 2000. Also there is Linux. And a slew of others.

Umm, I'm pretty sure that by "PCs", Intlharvester meant all traditional desktop and laptop computers as opposed to tablet computers. It seems like you're the one "inflaming the comments for no reason" here.

Snow Leopard was really excellent.Minor correction - Dashboard wasn't integrated into Mission Control. It was however rendered much less useful by make it a Space by default.I don't understand Launchpad at all. How is it preferable to having the Application folder in your dock?

Launch pad is supposed to be a familiar way for users new to the platform to launch applications. J know wen switching from windows to OSX, I wondered where the Start Menu equivalent was for days. And I was a pretty savvy user.

Coming from a Windows background, opening an application from the Finder seems completely unnatural.

For regular Mac users, Launchpad is something they can live without ever noticing, so it's a win-win

Considering Mac OS X's NextStep underpinnings, "lame" is an interesting way to start an article.

Not to take anything away from the greatness of NeXTStep, but it had been sitting on the shelf collecting dust for years* before Apple purchased it. There was apparently years worth of work required to get a 1990s workstation OS running acceptably on a 2000s era laptop. Unix people thought the 10.0 environment was totally obsolete. Plus, at that time, Carbon and Classic were far more important to Mac users than NeXT's sexy enterprise frameworks.

(*NeXT's computers and OS were failures, and at the end the company's main lines of business were MS-Windows and Web development tools.)

I have to disagree with Siracusa on 10.3. 10.0 and 10.1 were bags of hurt - early adopters only. 10.2 represented the first "acceptable" version of OS X - not great, but not terrible. 10.3 was the first version I felt willing to openly recommended to anyone over another platform. All the requisite features were finally there, things were finally stable, and although the interface wasn't exactly unified, it was polished enough to get by with.

Ultimately what I feel was the true "we're good to go" release was 10.6 - features finally, truly were unified and complete, and OS X was able to leave the past behind and head off into the future.

Regardless, I stand by my statement that personal computer OSes took surprisingly long to completely mature. And we PC users (Mac or Wintel) put up with an enormous load of bullshit for about ten years longer than we ideally should have. Everyone here is no doubt aware of the software problems Apple had in the 1990s and Microsoft had in the mid-2000s.

That’s why I was clinging to my Amiga for dear life all through the 90s, long after Commodore had imploded. Windows 2000 finally gave me an out.

But even so, Windows was still Windows. I toyed with various Linux distros until Tiger (and the Mac Mini) convinced me to switch platforms again. And so far so good.